Unsealing Emptiness

Chapter 322: Restless Night.

Raven and Blaze hadn’t yet tested why they were feeling considerably weaker all of a sudden when a deep voice rang out in the woods,

“Turns out you aren’t as weak as I expected. Hmph! It doesn’t matter since you will all be dead soon anyway!”

While Ozul already knew about the exact location of these three Mages, the others were clueless. Even Zier had only become aware of the trap and couldn’t locate nor sense the enemy’s presence.

The sudden shout caught them off-guard as they immediately readied themselves.

No sudden appearance of any Mage in this competition was going to end without conflict. Especially given their circumstances, they instantly understood the intentions of the other party were no good.

Only a few moments had passed when the three guests revealed their appearance from behind the tree on which Zier was standing guard.

All three of them were men of solid build, but a relatively average height. The most noticeable feature of this group was that all three of them had a scar or a tattoo in the middle of their forehead. Though they were barely visible in the shadows of this restless night.

.....

Others failed to notice, but as Ozul could feel the emotions of people, he knew that these three men, although looked calm from outside, were actually not feeling so good from inside.

He guessed it was either that this poison was affecting them as well or everything that had conspired until now wasn’t going according to their plan. The former was unlikely.

Nevertheless, their momentum right now could not be shaken since before even the fight started, Raven and Blaze were already at a disadvantage.

Facing this situation, only Ozul remained calm. Zier’s panic was a given since he was merely a low-ranked Fighter, but it was rare to see such a grave look on the duo’s face.

It was because precisely at this moment, they came to a realization that their physical weakness was the least of their worries right now!

From the moment they had heard the voice just now, they had instinctively tried to surround their whole body in a layer of Mana which would have boosted their focus and control on their own strength.

Yet, it quickly became apparent that controlling Mana outside their body had become even harder than regulating it inside their body!

“Urgh! Just what did you do?” growled Blaze as his Mana fluctuated wildly.

From his words, Ozul realized that except for him and that purple-haired kid, they really couldn’t smell the foul stench in the air.

The leader of the assailants sneered in response. It came as no surprise to him that they weren’t able to detect their poison.

“You’re asking too many questions for a soon-to-be-dead man,” he uttered before he nodded towards his companions, “Leave him to me. He is a wild one.”

His companions nodded back but not before one of them questioned, “What about the other two?”

For a moment, their leader seemed a bit conflicted but his grave expressions quickly subsided, replaced with a solemn face. “Stay vigilant from that ‘fragile beauty’... just in case he is hiding his strength. As for that kid, ignore him. He looks like a frightened bunny.”

The fragile beauty that this person talked about was obviously Ozul as from a stranger’s point of view, he really appeared to be a weak and sheltered second-generation noble.

His instructions were steadfast and he didn’t waste another moment before speeding towards Blaze as he shouted, “Remember! Don’t let that woman escape or I’ll hang your heads on a spear myself!”

It seemed clear who was in charge as the two peak Rank-7 Mages followed his commands without question and rushed towards Raven at the same time.

At any other time, facing a Rank-8 Mage with two subordinates at peak Rank-7 would have been an easy victory for either Raven or Blaze. However, they were poisoned right now and their enemy didn’t seem to want to give them any time to think over their situation either.

As the leader of the assailants closed in on Blaze, a sphere of black formed around his hands which gradually grew in size.

Atop the tree, Ozul quietly watched the show. The so-called poison had no effects on him.

As he comfortably watched the violent Mana of the enemy’s leader manifest spheres of dark around his hands, a rare smile stretched across his face, ‘This has gotten more interesting...’

Having spent decades on the continent, Ozul’s group had almost never come into contact with ‘Dark Mages’ except for the time when that cult was raising a Monster that fed on his limb to grow in unmatched power.

‘They must be from some hidden organization or cult of Dark Mages.’

Even with the Three-Eyed Strangers under him, he had very scarce knowledge about the Dark Mage cults around the world as they were all very secretive. They would never leak their information to the common people – the biggest source of information for the Three-Eyed Strangers.

He had also never seen or heard about an organization that used these kinds of methods before.

Raven and Blaze had obviously read about poisons as well but they hadn’t heard about one which would decrease their overall prowess many times over without even alerting them.

From the distance, Zier noticed the calm smile on Ozul’s face and felt something cold pressing against his back, ‘He is a lunatic! What if we die here today?!... though that smile... he looks good smiling...’

Suddenly coming back to his senses, Zier shook his head to throw away these distracting thoughts and focused on the fight which would determine his fate.

Against the grown spheres of darkness in the enemy’s hands, Blaze took his stance and willed to raise a spike of ice from the ground.

Just as he did so, ice rose from the ground.

But!!

It wasn’t even able to erect to a meter’s height when the ice structure stopped!

Blaze widened his eyes in horror as he saw the dark mage easily step around the ice and closed in on him.

It was too late to cast another spell.

*Fhooo!*

He hit his feet against the same ice structure and used the force to roll backward.

*Thugk!*

“Urgh!” Blaze clicked his tongue as his back scraped against the tree trunk due to the force.

The real pain, however, came from his left arm.

As he looked down at his left forearm, the bulging red veins from near the joint throbbed continuously with an excruciating sting.

A look of disbelief took over Blaze as the gravity of the situation finally started to settle in his brain. With their bodies weakened and Mana becoming so difficult to control, not only did he fail to cast a spell for the first time but he was also slow to react after the failure!

This was completely unacceptable!

“It seems I underestimated you,” the enemy leader also seemed surprised. He didn’t expect that this man would still have so much energy to resist.

“Be careful, Raven! Don’t wholly depend on your Spells!” Blaze shouted to alert Raven as he ran towards his opponent with a darkened face.

This time, ice particles started to condense in the air around him before melting immediately afterwards. Yet, the atmosphere only got colder by the second!

The rapid change in temperature almost caught his opponent off-guard but unfortunately for him, that man seemed to be a trained fighter.

He quickly reacted and joined his hands together to assimilate both the dark spheres together before chanting an incantation. The sphere grew even bigger in size!

“Take this!” shouted the man before shooting it straight towards Blaze who was only about ten or so meters away from him.

Again, Blaze willed it to erect ice structures with great force. To the point where his face was turning a little red.

With his efforts, two thick spikes rose from the ground, shielding him from the sphere of darkness which collided with it right after.

At the same time, Blaze didn’t stay still. He quickly jumped aside and was ready to launch another attack at his opponent when a blast went off beside him,

*Kabhum!*

The debris flew everywhere, putting out the small fire in the middle which caused the surroundings to turn even darker.

Both Blaze and his opponent were forced to look towards the source of the explosion.

Their faces collectively darkened in astonishment.

“It could reduce the ice spikes to such a sorry state...” muttered Blaze, wondering how this spell belonged to a Rank-8 Mage of only an initial stage.

“An end-stage Rank-8 can really persist for a long time...” muttered the opponent in amazement. He didn’t believe someone who hadn’t taken an antidote before could ever withstand the effects of this seemingly untraceable poison to this extent.

While Blaze was struggling against an initial stage Rank-8 Mage, Raven fared only a little better against the two peak Rank-7 Mages.

One of them had the Water Element while the other one had the Lightning Element.

What troubled her the most after the poison was that these two people only attacked in unison and their personal attacks complemented each other!

She had heard Blaze shout the warning just a second ago but she had already figured out the newfound difficulty in casting spells as she had secretly tried to cast her daggers before when the enemies had shifted their focus from them for a moment.

She had also noticed the strange wound on his hand from the attack earlier but she couldn’t help him. She had it easier than him but not so much that she could give him a helping hand without suffering a blow herself.

‘Hah... This is a mess!’ Raven thought with a quickened breath, dodging yet another barrage of electrically charged bullets of water.